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Hugh Pickens writes writes "Suzanne Goldenberg reports that conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120 million to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, helping build a vast network of think tanks and activist groups working to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarizing "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives. "We exist to help donors promote liberty which we understand to be limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise," says Whitney Ball, chief executive of the Donors Trust. Ball's organization assured wealthy donors that their funds would never by diverted to liberal causes with a guarantee of complete anonymity for donors who wished to remain hidden. The money flowed to Washington think tanks embedded in Republican party politics, obscure policy forums in Alaska and Tennessee, contrarian scientists at Harvard and lesser institutions, even to buy up DVDs of a film attacking Al Gore. "The funding of the denial machine is becoming increasingly invisible to public scrutiny. It's also growing. Budgets for all these different groups are growing," says Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, which compiled the data on funding of the anti-climate groups using tax records. "These groups are increasingly getting money from sources that are anonymous or untraceable.""

It's regrettable that this seems to have happened. It is not surprising. In fact, I'm SURE that influence is exerted on all side of the question by people and organizations who have political and economic interests in the outcomes of these debates. And I'm also sure that Goldenberg has her own bone to pick and didn't neutrally research the amount of influence exerted by all parties.

Other billionaires pump the "carbon credit" and "cap and trade" scams, billions of euros in fraud in europe alone. meanwhile, the hypocrite Al Gore only has millions of dollars but still manages a carbon footprint 30x the average American family's but is heralded as some kind of prophet.